Just How Much Money Is Psy Making From ‘Gangnam Style’?

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A breakdown of his YouTube ad revenue, iTunes sales and television commercial deals show the K-pop star is making millions

Psy's undeniably catchy single (paired with a nonsensical music video), "Gangnam Style," has no doubt brought the South Korean singer international fame, but just how much money is it making him?

The short answer is, a lot.

More specifically, the Associated Press has determined that the combination of his record-setting YouTube views, iTunes downloads and television commercials will dump at least $7.9 million in his bank account — minus his agent's cut, of course.

A total of 1.3 billion visits to his YouTube channel — 880 million of which strictly belong to his "Gangnam Style" music video — are estimated to have resulted in an easy $870,000 share of ad revenue.

Psy's second-largest source of all that moola is legal online downloads. His K-pop single has been purchased 2.7 million times by U.S. listeners and if iTunes' $1.29 fee is what they're paying, then Psy and his team net over $2.4 million after Apple takes a 30 percent cut.

Even though fans in South Korea have downloaded the hit 3.6 million times and streamed it over 40 million times, a cheap monthly subscription service means the country's biggest celebrity will only see slightly over $61,000 of that action.

Luckily for Psy, the poor profitability of music in his home country is easily supplemented by what big brands are paying him to appear in commercials. One analyst estimates he'll earn $4.6 million by asking consumers to eat more noodles and buy a new Samsung refrigerator, among other things.

But can all of this easy money continue to flow into his many tuxedo pockets? Psy's next album drops in March, so only time will tell.

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